


Friends with benefits, but not in the sexual way, idiot.

by KanamiAde



Series: In Which Frisk Isn't Synonymous To A Saint [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Acceptance, Angst, Canon Compliant, Chara & Frisk (Undertale) Share a Body, Flowey (Undertale) Redemption, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Frisk is Edgy as Hell, Gen, POV Flowey (Undertale), Post-Canon, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Post-Undertale Soulless Pacifist Route, References to Depression, death mention, suicide ideation mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22490077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KanamiAde/pseuds/KanamiAde
Summary: Arc I: In which Soulless isn't a synonym for emotionless.(Flowey forms a strange bond with Frisk, understands more and yet, at the same time, less about The Hero of Monsterkind.)
Relationships: Chara & Asriel Dreemurr, Chara & Flowey (Undertale), Chara & Frisk (Undertale), Flowey & Frisk (Undertale), no ship only friendship
Series: In Which Frisk Isn't Synonymous To A Saint [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618126
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	Friends with benefits, but not in the sexual way, idiot.

**Author's Note:**

> “You’re the type of friend I wish I always had.”  
> \---  
> This fic is inspired partially by assifist route, AKA the route where Frisk basically isn't a saint to everyone but gets the pacifist route ending anyway, and a fic I wrote wayy back about a soulless pacifrisk. Now I'm not saying Frisk went and beat everyone up, but they're not exactly a pacifrisk either. So uh, if you don't like the idea of Frisk having a different personality from pacifrisks, then this ain't the fic for ya.
> 
> Anyway, I worked on this fic a few years back, then dropped it because I didn't think I would finish it. But I thought it would be a shame not to ever post it. So here I am, posting a chapter. Hope you like it.

**Trigger warning: References to suicide and death**

Another beautiful day. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming and blah blah blah all that that you don't care about. God forbid you remember how long it's been since the barrier was broken, but it must have been a really long time because you feel bored as hell. 

You always had a knack for finding something to do to keep you from boredom, ranging from going out of your way to do stupid but selfless acts of kindness to harmless pranks to straight out murder. Anything would have suffice to keep you away from how empty you felt - morals and ethics be damned. You still don't regret the heinous acts you've done. As a matter of fact, the challenges you had to overcome just to turn a monster to dust was liberating; Well, the closest feeling to liberating anyway. 

You still remember the feeling sometimes. Sometimes. 

But now, what are you supposed to do? Smell the flowers? Look at the sun? Contemplate on the beauty and greatness of this world like a sentimental idiot? Anyway, the point is, you’d be one step away from finding something that actually interests you if it weren’t for Asriel. Asriel wanted you to stay here and watch over Chara’s grave and ‘move on’ from life. Okay, you do try to fulfil your so-called past self’s final wishes out of what would presumably be respect, but you literally can't give a damn about someone who used to be ‘you’, and he was too stupid and stupidly sentimental to realise it is going to be impossible to keep a soulless being underground with the corpse of a human you equally can't give a damn about. For all anyone knows, your state of “unboredom”(which you know isn't an actual word, but void isn't a feeling, and peace insinuates something positive so screw the English Language) is finite, and one day you're just gonna be really bored and start messing with the people on The Surface because it's not like you have anything to lose, you can't even di-

And then it dawned on you. You don't have save points anymore. 

You can die. 

You can **die**. 

A small giggle evolves into a cackle of laughter. If you still had your body, you would be rolling on the floor and maybe your stomach would hurt. You can **die**. **Die**. You have no intention to end your life, obviously, but the fact that you could off yourself at any given moment is so. Hilarious. Amusing, even. After all this time of exploiting your ability to play god, you could just end it all. 

And it would be so easy! Just one hit and it’ll be all gone! Just like that. No challenges, no puzzles, no stupid mind games. All it takes is your mere bullet pellets to end your pathetic existence of a miserable empty vessel once and for all. 

And everything, EVERYTHING, would be over. Hee hee hee. 

Ha. 

Too bad that if you were to crave for a death sentence you would want to do it in style. And by that you mean sending the world into utter chaos and extinguishing yourself along with it. 

And then suddenly, you hear footsteps. Your immediate reflex is to camouflage in the middle of all the Golden Flowers, and settle yourself in a position where no one could see your face no matter how they face or try to spot you. As the footsteps approach, you peeked from the corner of your eye, your face still in the blind spot to whoever decide to grace you with their appearance. A short human with dark brown hair and tanned skin. 

About time, you guess. You're not going to bother to show your presence though. What a shame. 

The human approaches the flower bed, staring at it as if they are about to inspect it like some sort of lab specimen. Despite knowing you're not going to be found, you feel something. If you didn't know better, you would have called it dread. But you don't know if you know better at this point. You realise, after Frisk broke the Barrier, that you didn't know better about a lot of things. 

You think that Frisk would try to find you by separating every Golden Flower one by one, but they turn away from the flower bed, walk towards the walls of the cavern and sit with their legs crossed, pulling their haversack in front of them to take out...a thin stack of papers, place their pencil case on the ground, fish out a pen and start _writing_. 

You furrow your non-existent brows. You didn't really have any expectations to what the papers were for, but you sure as hell didn't think Frisk would come all the way here to do homework. You don't know, and you don't need to find out because you aren't curious about what the hell they are doing. The more they aren't going to bother you, the better. 

You may not be as determined as Frisk, but you're still very determined. And with determination, there's stubbornness. So you're going to wait till the day is about to end, and they’ll be forced to leave without a sight of you. 

And everything goes as planned. When Frisk finally packs their things and leave, you bid good riddance. 

* * *

They come back the next day. Predictable. 

They bring colouring books this time. You almost scoff. As if the likes of a colouring book would lure you out. Sure, you enjoyed colouring books as Asriel, but you've long gotten bored of them after colouring every single colouring book available in The Underground as a flower. If they want you to come out, they're going to have to try much harder than that. They aren't going to succeed even if they try harder, but at the very least their attempts would be somewhat worthy. 

This is a sloppy attempt, like pasting two puzzle pieces together that clearly don’t fit with liquid glue and spilling it all over the place. They aren't even looking up to check if you moved from your position! Is this a joke? 

You still had the same sort of confusion as they left the caverns that day. 

And they keep coming back, one day after another, each day bringing something equally mundane as the previous. On the third day, they bring another thin stack of papers, but halfway through writing, they forgo the papers and start using their cell phone. On the fourth day, they make different kinds of origami but they are so. Trash at it. It almost mirrors the quality of Papyrus’ cooking. 

On the fifth day, as you watched them colour in their colouring book once again, you put the pieces together; They aren't going to try to lure you in with whatever the hell they are doing, because they’re absolutely suck at it. They are going to keep on doing their own thing over and over and over until you can't stand the silence between yourself and Frisk and break the silence out of impatience and curiosity. Because they think you'd rather talk to them and get something potentially interesting than to maintain your isolated status. Because they think they're more determined than you. 

Well, sucks to be them, then! They may have more Determination than you in the literal sense, but you're one hell of a Determined Flower, and with Determination comes Patience. This is nothing compared to what you had to do to commit full genocide back in the days. There’s no way you're going to lose to a child’s play. You could do this with your eyes closed. 

It's only a matter of time. 

* * *

It's been 40 days and as it turns out, Patience isn't your strong suit when you're not in full control of the situation. Containing your curiosity isn't either, though in retrospect you should have known old habits die hard. 

_Screw everything, if I end up burning the whole city in a few months then so be it,_ you think to yourself as you move to position yourself right in front of Frisk. You roll your eyes as they attempt to fold a origami flower -- emphasis on attempt -- and cough. They immediately put down their half-folded flower and looked up, eyes finally resting on you. 

”Hey, “ they say. 

You give your signature smile and greet them with a sing-song voice, though accompanied with sarcasm, ”Howdy! Congratulations, you managed to get me to talk to you after 40 days. You must feel reaaally clever about yourself, huh? “

”Eh, not really. I-“

”Yeah yeah, it's great to see you again, likewise,“ you interrupt. “Now that the obligatory ‘how do you do’s are over, let's get to the point, “you let the cheer in your voice disappear, indicating to Frisk that you mean business. “Look, as much as I appreciate the amount of effort you're putting in for in, which is to say 0 appreciation whatsoever, your efforts are pretty much useless. I'm not going. ”

”...I didn't come here to convince you to come of The Surface,“ Frisk states. 

You scoff. ”Please. I wasn't born yesterday. You may act stupid, but both of us know that you know better than to tell me straight that you came all the way here to bring me up to The Surface. “

Frisk frowns. ”Why would I want you to come up with me? It's not like The Surface is a sanctuary. “

Frisk always struck you as weird, especially considering they’re a human who went out of their way to be kind and break the Barrier. But the way they talk about The Surface slightly rubs you the wrong way. “Then why _are_ you here?“ you question, eyes narrowing at Frisk. “Wait, did you want to ‘hang out’ with me? Do you PITY me or something? ”

“Nah, not really, “ Frisk shrugs. “Though that would be fine too. Us hanging out, I mean. Might be fun. “

”Yeah, because Little Ol’ Flowey here is such a great companion! There isn't any reason at all to not make friends with him! Cut the bullcrap, Frisk. There’s no way I can be friends with you. I’m incapable of love, remember? Besides, don't you have a bunch of people to talk to on The Surface? Let's see...there's Papyrus, Sans, Undyne, Alphys, Toriel, Asgore, and, I don't know, the whole of Monsterkind? So many choices out there, and you chose the soulless flower who can't give a damn about you. ”

Frisk goes silent for a bit. You’re about to retort some snarky comment when they mumble, “Maybe that’s why I’d rather hang out with you. “

”..What?” 

”At least you wouldn’t patronise me, or ask me ‘Hey Frisk, are you alright’ or ‘Hey Frisk, I'm concerned about your well-being even though I wasn’t when you were just a jackass nobody’ or ‘Hey Frisk, you aren't acting like yourself even though I barely know you’ or ‘Oh hey Frisk have you brushed your teeth’ every single minute, “ Frisk grumbles, glaring at the floor. They sound so bitter it catches you by surprise -- you didn’t think they had it in them. It was almost like they were a completely different person. Hell, they sounded a little like you -- you can resonate with the feeling of frustrated towards others’ caring gestures. 

You'd be lying if you say you aren't at least a little intrigued.

“Who knew compassion could be so _suffocating_. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but...” they trail off, giving a side-scowl before speaking again. “Anyway, you're the only one who doesn't make me want to puke from obligatory niceness. Hell, even your mere camouflaged presence from the middle of the flowerbed feels less discomforting than my ‘BFFs’ on The Surface. “

”Golly, someone sure has some high standar-wait, “ you pause, registering Frisk’s words. “you knew I was there?” 

Frisk raises an eyebrow. “I found you on the first day I came here. It was a little tricky, I admit, but you weren’t impossible to find or subtle in your squirming. “

”What?! “ you can’t help but exclaim. 

”Yeah, “ Frisk shrugged, “Admittedly it was a tad amusing to watch you attempt to hide yourself, so I didn’t say anything. “

You give the human a raised eyebrow look, apart from the fact you have no eyebrows. “Well someone sure is a saint. “

”Says the plant who murdered me a hundred times when given the opportunity to play God. “

”Says the human who manages to befriend the whole of Monsterkind. “

Frisk barely winces, but you catch it anyway. “Fair enough. “

The two of you sit in silence for a bit, before you finally speak. “So what you are saying is that you don’t mind hanging out with me because I’m a soulless jerk. “

They laugh a bit. “I mean, I wouldn’t put it that way, but yeah. I guess so. “

”Okay. “

They blink. ”Okay?”

”Yeah, under one condition, “ you say as you shift your roots a little. “Don’t compare me to Asriel, don’t expect me to actually give a shit about you, and, “ you pause. You hate that you pause. You pick yourself up to say, “Don’t ever mention Chara. “

”That was three conditions. “

You roll your eyes. ”You get my point. “

Frisk eyes at you for a bit. “You know, I thought it would be much harder to convince you, “ they say, clearly suspicious. 

“Then, you thought wrong. ”

They stare at you for a while longer before reaching out for more origami paper from the plastic wrap on the ground. “Want to fold? You know how to, right? “

”I have _vines_ for hands, “ you state. “Does it look like I can fold origami. “

”Just offering,” Frisk shrugged, turning their gaze away from you and fiddle with the half-folded origami flower. “Though it's kind of funny that a being with the full potential of becoming a world-destroying god can't fold origami for shit. “

You know they're trying to trick you into folding origami with them, and it's working. You take the yellow paper with your vines and attempted to fold. 

It's a miracle that you manage to fold a flower without poking any holes through the paper, let alone one that actually looks like a flower. Not as good as the ones you folded when you had actual hands, but good enough. It's a bigger miracle that it looks significantly better than Frisk’s. 

”Wow you really suck, “ you taunt when Frisk finishes theirs. “I can barely tell it's a flower. “

”Shut up. I don’t fold to be good at it, “Frisk grumbles, already reaching out for more origami paper. 

The two of you spent the whole day folding origami flowers. When the origami paper ran out, it was about time for Frisk to leave. Frisk left with an awkward “see you” and you watch the silhouette of the human walking out of the cavern. 

So. You screwed up. 

It wouldn’t be the first time you broke a rule you made for yourself; First rule that you made as a flower was to only use your save points when necessary, and only to help others, and boy did that fall apart real quick! You were literally waiting for the day you stop caring about Asriel’s past wishes anyway, and you manage to last longer than you thought you would, so that's an accomplishment. 

At least you are guaranteed to have an interesting few months before something potentially goes wrong. 

* * *

It’s been a few months, and if you had to be honest, Frisk isn't half bad as a companion. 

One, they don’t pull the “I’m aware of your soullessness so I'm alright with giving in all the time while you do what you do” bullshit. In the few timelines where you reveal your lack of love, people shower you with sympathy affection. You never felt guilty about receiving all the affection -- hell, sometimes you exploit their pity to your advantage -- but the hindrance it produces is one of the few reasons why you don’t reveal your soullessness after you found out nothing could be done to fix it. Frisk, on the other hand, literally treats you how you treat them -- no sugar-coating of words, and no obligatory actions for each other. It's somewhat of a refreshing change. 

Two, despite saving monsterkind and all that stuff, they're a little bit of an ass. Not as bad as Jerry, but it’s a wonder how they managed to befriend every monster when they present themself as a person with barely any redeeming qualities. Which is great, because they can’t get you back when you act the same way to them. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It's fair. 

Three, they constantly bring stuff to do. You quickly find out that they don’t mind not making conversation. Several times when Frisk comes over, the two of you merely immerse yourselves in whatever they have, whether be it colouring books, origami, homework, comic books, jigsaw puzzles, crosswords and the list goes on. While they all sound stupid, and still are, it’s actually weirdly relaxing. Almost therapeutic, even. 

So all in all, Frisk’s isn’t terrible to be around for you, but that also makes them a terrible individual for anyone else to hang out with. That’s not your loss. 

You were expecting something interesting, but you didn’t expect yourself to feel so at ease with it. And while you still don’t feel compassion for the human, or any positive emotion towards them, you can acknowledge that their presence doesn’t make you feel like something’s wrong with you. That’s close enough to appreciating someone. There’s also the fact that you may have gathered some clues to the reason for their peculiar expression the other day, which adds some extra fun to all of this. 

You haven’t felt this peaceful for a long while. 

* * *

”Frisk. “

”What, “ they shoot. Golly, what a polite individual. 

”Do you still have your save powers?” 

Frisk’s blue colour pencil goes still for a split second, before they begin colouring again. “...Nope. There was the ‘TRUE RESET’, which I think is the power to start over the timeline to when I first arrived here in The Underground, but there aren’t save points anymore. “

” ‘Was’? “ You inquire as you choose the purple-coloured pencil and start colouring a cartoon version of the ‘sun’. You're not really surprised at the ‘TRUE RESET’ -- you had your suspicions -- but losing powers from your Determination are supposedly impossible. 

”Yep. I broke the shit that activated the power apart. “

You didn’t even know that was possible. ”Why? “

”Didn’t want to accidentally activate the power in my sleep, “ Frisk answers, taking a yellow-coloured pencil to colour the rain. “Why the sudden question? Trying to confirm something? “

”I don’t know. Why the question? Scared? ”

”You wished, “ They sneer, but their face says otherwise. They’re lucky you don’t ever plan to reveal to them what you know to ask them further; It wouldn’t be fun if everything is solved in an instant. Sure, you’re somewhat frustrated at the fact that they managed to erase your memory of the first time they went through The Underground and how you currently have absolutely no clue to what happened during that time, but you’re okay with frustration. It helps to keep your mind occupied. 

”Hey Flowey, “Frisk speaks, almost tentatively. That’s a rare tone coming from them. 

”Yeah?”

“If I sometimes wonder what’s it like to be soulless, would that be fucked up or what. “

You switched your purple-coloured pencil to a red-coloured one to colour the long, curved fruit ”Of course not, "you say, rolling your eyes." that's like asking if it's mean to have an imagination. “

Frisk picks the orange-coloured pencil to colour the tree. They ask, “How awful is it to be soulless?”

” What do you think lack of love means? “you say in a deadpan voice. 

There was no reply from the human. Usually you would change the subject if someone were to ask about soullessness, but the idea of explaining soullessness to Frisk somehow doesn't leave a sour taste in your mouth. You placed the colour pencil down to take a deep breath and explain. 

“It means you feel enough to want to feel things, but not enough to have the proper ethics and emotions to act like a proper being. Everyday is dull and boring, and your only source of joy is the complicated puzzles you form, immoral or not, and even then your happiness drains away once you finish them. You feel no guilt at murdering someone who could have been someone you care about if you had a soul, and most times you feel pretty apathetic upon their death. “ When you finish, you definitely do not will yourself not to look away from Frisk. 

Frisk stares at you for the longest time and with an unreadable expression on their face, before looking down at the colouring book. You don't remember the last time you have a hard time reading someone’s face. You think they are about to apologise or show signs of sympathy when they suddenly narrow their eyes at the drawing, “Hey, why the fuck is the sun purple? ”

”I felt like it. “

They stare at you, annoyance written on their face. “That's the wrong colour and you know that. “ 

"If you have a problem with it, then why is the rain yellow? “You shoot at them. “I don’t even need to see The Surface to know you used the wrong colour. “

”That’s because it’s not rain. It’s pee. “

You make a face at them. ”Gross. “

They shrug. ”That's kind of the point. “


End file.
